


all i want for christmas (is you)

by ApprenticeofDoyle



Category: Klaus (2019)
Genre: Catharsis, M/M, Magic, The Eleventh Christmas, i'm warning you bro, spoilers for the end of the film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21556834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticeofDoyle/pseuds/ApprenticeofDoyle
Summary: “I don’t understand,” Jesper said. “If you...if you’re—” His voice creaked, like a rusty doorknob, but he carried on, “--then how are you...here?”“It’s Christmas Eve night,” Klaus said. “Where else would I be?”
Relationships: Jesper Johanssen/Klaus
Comments: 71
Kudos: 780





	all i want for christmas (is you)

**all i want for christmas (is you)**

The first time Jesper saw him, he nearly set his house on fire.

It was almost midnight, and Alva was already asleep. Christmas was tomorrow morning, and both of them had been working tirelessly for weeks to prepare: shipments were going out farther than last year—as they had the year before that, and the year before that—and the Operation stretched miles beyond Smeerenburg and across the Svalbard archipelago, with eager plans to eventually broach the Norwegian Sea. They had crafted, wrapped, stowed, and shipped thousands of gifts in squadrons of Sámi sleighs, filled the holds of dozens of small steamboats; everyone had put in maximum effort this year in particular, to keep things running smooth.

Everyone. And Jesper, he’d tried. But this year, despite his best efforts, had been...hard. The hardest, actually, by far, testing his strength more than any Christmas before it.

The problem of it was, he'd kept waiting for the sounds of booming laughter around the workshop. 

The problem-- problems, he would realize, as there were many-- was that he’d kept looking up, ready to ask about adding a new town or gush over a new toy schematic. He’d kept having to stop himself from finishing the cheesy joke half out of his mouth because the person he’d been saving it for wasn’t there, kept trailing off mid-sentence when he realized the presence behind his shoulder was missing, kept freezing mid-thought whenever the axe—displayed, untouched, in memoriam beside the family carving—caught his eye and jogged his memory. 

Today had been the worst of it. He’d been distracted, quiet. Kept dropping things, hadn’t spoken as much. Everyone had noticed, he knew it. Alva had given him space, and Margu had kept trying to keep him focused with ideas, shipping updates, and her general unchallenged luminosity, but unfortunately, it hadn’t worked. He’d left the workshop on the hill with Alva earlier than he’d had in years past, breaking a decade-long tradition of sneaking down in the sleigh to wait until the morning hours to watch the market square erupt in screams of joy. 

For the first time, he was home on Christmas Eve, and he was exhausted. His bones and joints ached in a way that hadn’t before in the evening chill, and he felt..tired. So tired he felt scraped out, worn. He’d tried to go to bed early, escape from the hollow in his stomach through sleep, with hope to rise and revel in the Christmas warmth come the morning, but rest had eluded him. His mind kept wandering to years past, whispering that he shouldn’t be here at home, that he should be knee-deep in snow, chuckling and hushing another to be quiet over a shared flask of hot cocoa. The knowledge that he couldn’t, that it was over, kept itching at him, stinging at his eyes, and he’d given up the effort and crept downstairs for a glass of sweet milk, hoping it would help drive him to sleep. 

He’d been holding an oil lamp, light turned down low, and creeping over the floorboards towards the kitchen when he saw it.

There was a man in his house. Sitting in his armchair in front of the fireplace, silent as a spectre and watching him.

He’d squealed, flailing up his hands immediately, and the oil lamp had went flying. The shape had moved, faster than what should been possible, and caught it in a large, red-gloved hand. Jesper had stumbled backwards, vocal chords paralyzed, and another hand went to the lamp’s knob, feeding the light to grow brighter.

The face of the stranger slowly slid into soft, yellow relief, and Jesper felt his heart freeze solid in his chest.

“Klaus?” he whispered.

His voice was missing, stolen by disbelief. The lamp was put down to rest on his settee, and as he turned, all Jesper could see were those blue, sparkling eyes, shining with warmth in the low burning light. He couldn’t breathe.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” that voice said, with a low, amused rumble that he had _missed_ down to the core of his very soul. 

“You never do,” he croaked out, numb. “You were always so quiet for someone so...” He trailed off, staring.

"Disproportionally statuesque?" The quip was light, tapping into memories ten years long past. His vision filled up hot and blurry. 

“ _Klaus,_ ” Jesper said. His voice was thick, like molasses, and his throat ached from the effort of speaking. Klaus stood there, just smiling at him, his mouth the kindest curve Jesper had ever known.

“Klaus—” he choked, and stumbled forward. He fell more than he ran, but large arms caught him regardless, sweeping him into a hug that crushed him tight. He buried his face in soft Sámi wool, tears coming out of the corners of his eyes. “I—you’re here, Klaus, you’re _here—_ You... _you—”_ He went stiff in the embrace, ripping himself away despite his every soppy instinct telling him to hold on forever, and found himself slapping the chest in front of his with building, spitting rage. “You! _YOU!_ YOU!”

“Ow, ow, why—Jesper, what on Earth-”

“You—” Jesper managed, voice shaking with deep, impossible rage. “I _looked_ for you! I _searched for you!_ I looked for days, for _weeks_ , I traveled all over the island desperate to find you and they had to _convince me to stop_ because I wouldn’t accept that you’d just _disappear without even saying goodbye, and_ you! I could strangle you! I could-"

His voice broke, snapped in two, and the weak fists that had been pummeling Klaus’s preposterously broad chest lost their energy, trembling fingers loosening and coming to rest.

Klaus’s arms moved from around him and front, carefully taking Jesper’s hands from his chest with his ludicrously large gloves. He held them together to stop their trembling, surrounding them with a steady, comforting warmth.

“Jesper,” Klaus said, voice soft and horribly gentle. It made something inside Jesper quiver and crack. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You know?” Jesper says, gaze glassy as he stared at his hands in Klaus’s paws. They were the same ones he'd been given all those years ago, crimson red, but the stitching that had worn loose along their seams with time was hewn, repaired. Jesper blinked frantically, his brain catching up with his ears. “What do you mean, you know, were you _watching—”_ His eyes went wide, words spilling out of his mouth with speed, “--Oh my god, you were watching, ohmygod-am-I-asleep. Am I dead right now, am I—”

“ _Jesper,_ ” Klaus said, with that chuckling rumble that meant he’d done something foolish and amusing. Jesper used to do anything to make Klaus laugh, used to clown around the workshop like a jester just to hear the sound of it. “No. You’re not dead.”

“I’m not?” he echoed. It should be a relief, but really he's just confused. “I’m not, yeah, okay, but—” He stopped, and looked up to meet blue, blue eyes. What he saw twisted his heart in a vice. 

Klaus looked young. As young as the day he first saw him, all those years ago. His beard was lustrous, a waterfall of pale white curls, and the wrinkles and smile lines that had clung like webs to the corners of his eyes and mouth were gone, wiped away as if they were never there. He was standing up at his full, indomitable height instead of slumping a little, as he’d done the last few years ever since Dancer had broken a leg and sent the sleigh hurtling and them with it. 

Klaus was younger. Klaus was—

“Yes,” Klaus said, reading his mind. His expression was calm, compassionate. He looked for all the world at peace, rather than a man that life had left.

“Oh,” Jesper said, very quietly. His eyes were brimming with tears once again, and he felt the last part of his heart still holding out hope break.

“It's alright. Hey. Look at me, old friend. Look at me.” Jesper swallowed the stone in his throat away and did, and found Klaus looking at him with a knowing, tender smile that reached into his chest and held something there together. “I’m fine. I’m more than fine. It comes to us all. I just went home.” The hands wrapped around Jesper’s squeezed tight, and migrated to hold his shoulders. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye. I’ve been waiting for the chance.”

“I don’t understand,” Jesper said. “If you...if you’re—” His voice creaked, like a rusty doorknob, but he carried on, “--then how are you...here?”

“It’s Christmas Eve night,” Klaus said. “Where else would I be?”

Jesper felt himself wilt under the hands on his shoulders. Something inside gave, went, and he let himself crumble. Sobs climbed up and out of his throat, and Klaus drew him close again, hands sliding around his back as Jesper began to cry openly into the man’s chest.

“I missed you,” Jesper managed, through awful, shuddering gulps of air. It felt like he was drowning. He’d not cried like this, not since Alva finally convinced him to give up the month before, and even then it’d been buried in a pillow alone, aching for relief that wouldn’t come. “I missed you and you just _left_ and I--doing this without you is so _hard--”_

“Shh, shh, I know, it’s alright,” Klaus hummed comfortingly, and it was almost like never left, because he was warm against Jesper, and his voice vibrated out of a body that was here, that was present, but he _wasn’t._ “You and Alva and Margu...you’ve done so well, Jesper. The operation is even bigger this year, I’m so proud of what you all accomplished. Our dream is getting so much bigger.”

 _Our dream._ The words were a steel band, fastened around his heart and lungs. “I didn’t think,” Jesper sniffed, still struggling to control the urge to heave breaths and calm the grief strangling him from the inside. “I didn’t ever think that--that you wouldn’t be here, that we’d have to do it alone. I don’t _want_ to do it without you.”

“Jesper.” A hand slid from his back to tuck beneath his chin, tilt it upwards. He sniffed, beyond embarrassment, and met Klaus’s gaze once again. “You’re never alone. I will always be with you. And I will always help you on Christmas.” Jesper blinked red eyes in confusion, opening his mouth in question, and the hand directed his chin slowly to the Christmas tree he’d painstakingly decorated in the corner of the den. There, beneath the tree, apart from stowed presents to and from Alva, were three new presents, gorgeously wrapped.

“While I’m away, I’m getting ready too.”

Jesper swiveled his head back to look at him, awe and confusion muddling his thoughts. “You...”

“Still have a partner,” Klaus said, eyes gleaming. “But while you care for the Operation on the ground, I’ll be...extending our efforts.”

Jesper gawked at him. “Extending? Extending where?”

Klaus glowed. “I’m thinking...everywhere,” he said.

Jesper stared. Klaus’s natural incandescence seemed a little more... _glowy_ than he remembered. Literally. There was a corona of golden light that seemed to emanate from the man's entire body, just a shade lighter than yellow-orange lamplight.

“But you’re dead,” Jesper said, uncomprehending.

“Mmm,” Klaus agreed. “In a way. But....there’s always been something... _special_ about what we do, Jesper. Something greater. In the workshop, you could feel it.” Klaus’s expression softened. “Lydia could feel it, when I first began to build the toys. And even when she was gone, she tried to tell me. It just took a while for me to realize it. Took someone in particular.” He looked down again at Jesper with a familiar gaze that made him feel seen, made him feel warm and valued and beloved. He’d missed that look. 

“She knew, the second you broke into my house,” Klaus said, grinning.

“I didn’t _break in_ , I knocked and icicles trapped me inside,” Jesper responded automatically, and his own words struck him like a chord. “Uh.” Maybe that was weird. Maybe that was weirder than just weird, and weird in a really _weird_ kind of way. But still- 

“She knew, and...maybe meddled a bit,” Klaus allowed. “When you came back, after the first night shift with that look in your eyes and that fire in your step--even though your intentions still had some...growth in the works—” Jesper huffed, conceding the point, “--you...you _glowed."_

Klaus was looking at Jesper with an expression close to awe, and the sight made Jesper's head spin. That Klaus could be anything close to 'amazed' by him was staggering, ludicrous. _He_ wasn't the amazing one, he was just--

"When you told me your plan, started reading the letters of the children out loud to try to pull on my heartstrings," Klaus continued, with a quiet chuckle, "...She drew a halo around you." Jesper felt his heart swing like a clock's pendulum, speechless when Klaus's voice became tender enough to suspend it mid-flight. "Because you’d come to save my life.”

“I...” Jesper shook his head, disbelieving. “I didn’t--I don’t _glow,_ that’s your thing.” His cheeks burned. That wasn’t something he’d ever said out loud. “I-I didn’t save your life, I just—”

“Gave me a reason to live again?” Klaus finished gently, and Jesper’s entire body went red in a blush. “You _did,_ Jesper. Without you, I would have withered away in that cabin alone, lost in my grief. You rescued me from that. Started the Operation. Nearly killed yourself falling down chimneys and running from wild dogs and wrangling reindeer to do it, and you have given thousands of children joy, every year since then.” Klaus lifted a glove to cup Jesper’s face. “You started a dream, and tapped into something powerful. It’s how I can be here. How I’m going to take the Operation further, even from where I am now. Every year, children across the entire Earth will have joy on Christmas, and every year, on every Christmas Eve, I can come back.”

“Come back?” Jesper breathed. If this was possible...if he really wasn’t dreaming...hope ballooned in his chest, a ball of light on a rising string. “For—for how long?”

Klaus looked briefly thoughtful, his thick eyebrows coming together, and dipped his head. “First light on Christmas day. And then, I must go home.” When Jesper felt his face fall, Klaus tapped him once on the cheek, teasing. “To rest, and get ready for next year. Just like you should.”

“Oh,” he said. “...Okay.” He swallowed. He didn’t know what to say. Trapped in his ribcage was too much feeling, too few words; a frantic, complicated mass that stirred parts deep and buried inside. He wore so much on his sleeve and words were his most frequent tools in situations of strife, and here he was abandoned by them, shy and pink-cheeked in his own home, alone with his closest friend of so many years. Where were his words? What did he need to say?

He tried to focus on what was most important, first. And what was that?

“So you’ll come back on Christmas Eve?” Jesper mustered. It was that he needed swiftest answer to.

Klaus nodded. Jesper pointed a finger up at him.

“Every year?” he asked, more of a demand than a question. The edges of Klaus’s mouth curled, merry.

“Every year,” Klaus said, and in his voice was a promise. All at once, the broken pieces inside Jesper seemed to stir and come together, Klaus’s words and presence stitching him back into the whole he became when he first knocked on Klaus’s door, all those years ago. He’d lost that person, for a time. Since finding Klaus’s axe, lying forgotten underneath the snow. He hadn’t been certain he would ever find that person, again.

But now...

“Jesper, it’s past midnight now,” Klaus said, and Jesper blinked up at the teasing lecture in his tone, retrieving his thoughts from where they'd sunk beneath the floorboards. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” Jesper lifted a finger again, stabbing it upwards, and Klaus smirked at him. “I was getting water. I was in bed.” He crossed his arms, indignant, when Klaus’s eyebrow climbed to his hairline. “I’m tired, okay? I’m achy and it’s cold and I’m _old_ now, alright?” When Klaus’s expression didn’t change, he deflated, shoulders slumping. His gaze wandered away, embarrassed. “Okay, so I was...moping. I wasn’t in the mood to wait in the snow in the square alone. It...it hurt too much. There, you happy?”

The hand still on his shoulder moved up the collar of his robe and his neck to ruffle the back of his hair, sending goosebumps down his spine. “I’m sorry you thought you were alone,” Klaus said, voice low and smooth, offering a comfort Jesper wanted to close his eyes and fall into. “But you’re not. You’re forbidden from moping from now on now, do you understand? You’re the bedrock of the Operation here on the ground, and everyone looks to you for strength. They need you at your best.” Klaus’s eyes were blue heather, serene and kind. “And I won’t have you breaking a ten year tradition.”

For the first time in what seemed like ages, Jesper found his mouth curling into a smile. “Yeah? You have the time? Seems like you have quite a docket, what with the world’s children on the schedule and all.”

“It’s not a problem. I’m actually pretty good at being...magical and awesome.” Jesper scoffed, pushing at Klaus’s smug face with both hands until they were both laughing. It died down as Klaus again took Jesper’s hands, holding them in the space between their bodies with care.

“I made time,” Klaus said lowly, and Jesper’s heart seemed to burst into butterflies. 

“Oh,” he said, voice soft, surprised, and so very, very happy. A beat, and a thought. “...Do ghosts drink hot chocolate?”

Klaus blinked at him, and threw his head back in a laugh loud enough to wake Alva and probably the entire street, that belly-deep, cavernous, ridiculous laugh that was imprinted on Jesper’s very soul, and everything was alright. Ornaments and wrappings glittered in the low candlelight, snow fell silently beyond the window panes, and Klaus’s hands were ensconcing his, like he’d never left, and had always been here.

“...You know, I’m not sure,” Klaus said, cheeks mirth-ruddy. “I haven’t tried to do much. I have the strangest craving for cookies, though, and I never had much of a sweet tooth.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re lying to my face right now,” Jesper said. “You ate _so_ much chocolate, are you kidding me? I never understood how someone could eat as much chocolate as you did and still rip logs apart with your bare hands, I mean, Christ’s sakes. I don’t think we’ll have time to make cookies or whatever, but I’ll make some ahead of time next year, alright?”

 _Next year._ Already, the words warmed him, like a hearth had been constructed within the center of his chest to sustain him in the coming days.

“For now, though...hot chocolate will have to do,” he said, pulling away from Klaus’s touch to head back into the kitchen to dig out the kettle. “I’ll be quick. Then we can go to our spot. The Vengelburgs got a watchdog this year, so we might have to bring some dried meat for a distraction.”

“Not a problem,” Klaus said, and he snapped his large fingers. In an instant, sitting in his hand, was a perfect string of sausages. Jesper froze with one foot in the air, jaw dropping to the floor. Klaus looked smug again.

“I—what—” Jesper croaked, shaking his head. “You’re magic. You’re actually magic.” His hands went to bury themselves in his blond curls. “I better not be dreaming. I’ll lose my mind if I wake up in my bed in a few minutes, swear to Christ—”

“You aren’t dreaming,” Klaus said fondly. “I’m still getting the hang of this thing, the first time it happened I just wanted a ladder to get inside a home in Paris, and bam, just like that.” Klaus shrugged his mountainous shoulders. “I was inside the house.”

“You can walk through _walls?”_ Jesper said, eyes bugging from his skull. “Holy _cow._ You really are a ghost. Oh my god. My best friend’s a ghost. Oh my god. I’m gonna make my best friend the ghost some hot cocoa. Will it just, like, pass through you or something? But I can, uh, touch you fine, how does that work? Oh my _god, my best friend is a magical Christmas ghost,_ how is this my life-"

“Jesper.”

Jesper blinked at him. Sapphire eyes sparkled in the candlelight, dazing him. “Huh?”

“Make the cocoa. Time’s a’wasting.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, okay. You're a ghost, and it's _fine._ Totally fine, not normal but good! Really good. I'm just gonna—” He halted once again, squinting. “Why can’t you just _summon_ some cocoa? Why do I gotta make it? Are you a _lazy_ ghost-”

“Jesper.”

“Right, right, okay,” he said, and found himself pausing in the doorway. Panic, small and slithering, took hold of him, making him cold. He looked over his shoulder, and found himself staring at Klaus. Memorizing everything about him. Willfully embedding his kind face, his long, broad nose, his large hands and the set of his shoulders into the depths of his memory, like he was a fleeting image that would disintegrate the moment he stopped looking. If he was going to disappear, Jesper didn't want to forget a single detail.

“Go on,” Klaus said. “I’ll still be here.”

Jesper swallowed roughly. “Okay,” he said. “Be right back.”

* * *

He was still there when he got back with the cocoa in their flask.

He would still be there every time he dragged his eyes away to look across the houses of Smeerensburg from their spot at the top of the mountain in the Vengelburgs’ yard as the family Rottweiler chewed happily on sausages.

He was there until dawn broke in streaming golden lights from behind their backs, and he was there when they said goodbye. And he did say goodbye, this time. And promised again that he would return, only to blink away with the fading warmth of his hands on Jesper’s shoulders.

He would be there, every year after that, thirty minutes to midnight on the dot. And every year-- as he got older, as the world got bigger, as their dream stretched wider than they'd ever imagined-- Jesper would count down the days until Christmas Eve, and their tradition. For the new presents under the tree, for cocoa and losing feeling in his legs under deep white snow, and for blue eyes and warm hands, waiting for him in the firelight.

**Author's Note:**

> i may or may not have cried while writing this, but dammit, that what this movie did to me! i needed catharsis of my own, and was compelled to write this immediately after the credits rolled. might even write some more, because clearly, i'm past the point of no return, writing about a santa claus who's built like a brick house in love with a preposterous, twiggy postman. whatever. they've insinuated themselves into my heart.
> 
> happy holidays, everyone. hope you enjoy. <3


End file.
